Self-defense – Choose a Safe City to Live and 10 Most Dangerous Cities

Self-defense means keeping yourself safe. This includes much more than martial arts and fighting systems. Anything you do that increases the likelihood of going home safe every night to your family, or helping ensure your family is safe at work, school, and around town, is part of your overall safety and self-defense strategies.

Should you learn to defend yourself? Yes, of course I believe you should. But even more important than learning how to punch and kick are practicing safe habits such as awareness and avoidance. That’s why I want you to download my guide to awareness over on the right side of this page as soon as you’ve finished this post. (Besides, you’ll get more self-defense tips in the monthly newsletters.)

With that said, choosing a safe place to live, and knowing the dangerous places you frequent, increases your safety, and thus should be part of your overall survival plan. Because self-defense is about survival.

Stop for a moment to watch this video:

As I said in the video, not everyone has the option to live wherever they want, and not everyone would like living in Western Montana. (Which is good, I like the smaller safer community as it is for raising my daughter.)

So I want you to research your city and determine the safe and not so safe areas. (And for some places –  the dangerous areas!)  Know them, and plan and act accordingly. Knowledge is power, but only if you use it. Find out where the dangerous places (and times) are, and avoid them. I understand that violence and (and does) happen anywhere. But what we are trying to do is increase the odds of staying safe.

You can’t do everything. But you can do simple things to increase your safety, and that’s what I’m encouraging you to do here.

To get you started with your research, here are the 10 most dangerous cities in America according to 24/7 Wall St. The list is based on the FBI Uniform Crime Report, and takes into account that according to the FBI, violent crime includes murder, nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery and aggravated assault.

These ten cities with populations of 100,000 or more have the highest rates of violent crime per 100,000 residents. Ranked from number ten to the most dangerous:

10. Cleveland, Ohio

9. Baltimore, Md.

8. New Haven, Conn.

7. Birmingham, Ala.

6. Stockton, Calif.

5. Memphis, Tenn.

4. St. Louis, Mo.

3. Oakland, Calif.

2. Detroit, Mich.

1. Flint, Mich.

 

See the entire 24/7 Wall St. article here.

More resources to help keep you safe: